


Searching for a Piece of Art

by pearlcaddy



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Anxiety Attacks, Banter is My Love Language so It's Jukebox's Too, But interspersed with fluffy banter because of who I am as a person, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Living!Phantoms AU, M/M, Minor Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Rated T for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26897827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearlcaddy/pseuds/pearlcaddy
Summary: Luke, Alex, and Reggie are all set for a killer final summer at the Los Feliz Conservatory of Music, but Luke is convinced that the band’s sound is still missing something. The good news? He may have found the missing sound. The bad news? She's a (super cute) musician who can’t perform anymore.Vaguely based on Raise Your Voice. aka Living Julie and the Phantoms (& Flynn & Willie) + summer music school + an unruly amount of banter
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson, Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters & Willie, Flynn & Julie Molina, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters
Comments: 341
Kudos: 914





	1. Now or Never

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Everybody’s Lonely by Jukebox the Ghost because, you know, Jukebox the Ghost.
> 
> This is very loosely based on the vague memories I have of _Raise Your Voice_.
> 
> Bobby and Carrie just aren’t related in this.
> 
> Playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nyZ4ymF7jN6VbXPyMSyoZ?si=MwSHDQ31QyGKu8Otmv6i_Q)

Even after the fact, Luke would never admit this, but since he normally didn’t pay attention to strangers, he probably owed Reggie a big thank you.

It wasn’t like Luke didn’t notice people when he was in public. But he’d always felt that his brain operated with stereo channels. One channel paid attention to the world around him and the other was totally devoted to music: thinking about the songs he was working on, analyzing music he heard or remembered, brainstorming new lyrics. And if he was honest, the two channels were far from evenly balanced. Either people had to be talking to him directly (preferably about music) or something big had to happen for him to pull focus from the music channel.

Reggie also seemed to have two channels: one for regular life and the other for attractive people. Hanging out with Reggie meant subscribing to an endless livestream devoted to the topic of “who is pretty and exists in my field of vision?” Which often made being in public with Reggie a bit of a nightmare.

So naturally, it all started because they were in public—or in the semi-public space of the Los Feliz Conservatory of Music’s dorm—watching people move in for the summer music program. It was the boys’ third year at LFCM, so by now they were old hat and had been able to skip the move-in tours and orientation. Basking in their seniority, Luke, Reggie, Alex, and Willie were sprawled out on the long couches that spanned the atrium, observing the parade of arrivals checking in at the front desk.

“Can you pull a muscle from winking too much?” Reggie asked as he rubbed his face.

Alex raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t actually have to wink at everyone you find attractive. It’s probably creepy.”

“Oh no, is he making us look creepy by association?” Willie cuddled into Alex’s side, more invested in his reunion with his long-distance boyfriend than in whether they were actually being tainted by Reggie.

“I’m laying groundwork for potential relationships. These two months fly by--I need to be efficient.”

“That definitely makes it sound creepier.” Alex made a face. “Luke, back us up.”

Luke was staring at the ceiling, trying to work out whether he wanted to switch some of the plural pronouns in the pre-chorus of “Bright” to singular pronouns. It took an aggressive nudge from Alex and a moment of replaying the conversation he hadn’t really been listening to for him to contribute.

“If you have to explain why what you’re doing isn’t creepy, you’re being creepy. Also, most of these people were here last year. They already know us.”

“I like it,” Alex chipped in. “It’s like we’ve got a summer music fam.”

Carrie chose that exact moment to strut toward the check-in desk with the other members of Dirty Candy.

“… plus Carrie.”

“Hot take,” Reggie said. “We hate her and she hates us. Carrie is what makes it a real family.”

Alex and Luke burst out laughing. Willie, the only one in the group who had a good relationship with his parents, let out the nervous giggle of not being sure if you can laugh at someone else’s dark joke.

Reggie sighed loudly. “How else do you get the attention of pretty people?”

Alex glanced down at his boyfriend. “How did I get your attention?”

“You were on the wrong part of sidewalk.”

Reggie nodded. “Hmm, assume I don’t think assault is a meet-cute.”

“Honestly, I noticed him in the band days before I ran him over.”

Alex’s jaw dropped. “What?? Did you run me over on purpose?”

“It was probably 50% ‘got distracted by how cute you are’ and 50% ‘my board rejects LA streets.’”

Reggie shook his head. “This is all very adorable and obviously I ship it, but let’s stay focused. Luke and I are here to woo.”

Luke, who had mentally slipped back to the problem of the plural pronouns, did a double take. “Luke is here to improve his vocal performance and composition skills.”

Reggie let out a loud sigh. “Instead of ganging up on Reggie and his dreams, can someone--”

Realizing that he wouldn’t get to focus on his lyrical problems until this was sorted, Luke snagged Reggie’s bass case and tossed it at him. “Willie noticed Alex in the band. So, let’s be in the band.”

Reggie leapt to his feet with a grin while Alex groaned. “The RA is going to hate us. I hate disappointing the RA.”

Luke chucked Alex’s drumsticks at him. “C’mon, count us off, boss.”

While Luke and Reggie got their instruments ready, Alex arranged their luggage around himself as a makeshift drum set, sighing dramatically. But when Luke jumped up on the couch and strummed the opening of “Now and Never,” Alex flashed him a grin. “One, two, three!”

As they launched into a very haphazard performance, part of Luke’s soul soothed. That was more like it. Luke the person always felt slightly out of sync with people. Luke the musician felt complete and confident with musicians and the audience.

The new students turned to eye them, some appreciative and some exasperated (hey, book gigs by doing, right?), while the staff looked torn between annoyed about the disruption and relieved that something interesting had actually happened on their shift. And if the occasional giggles were anything to go by, Reggie was indeed sending off some winks.

Running around on a couch wasn’t quite as easy as on a firm stage, but there was something pleasantly bouncy about it, especially in the extra cushy sections closest to the dorm’s main entrance. Luke started jumping up and down, screaming the chorus to anyone who wanted to listen (presumably everyone?)… and no longer paying attention to where the couch ended.

His legs hit the back of the couch and, without his permission, he started to fall backwards. He desperately swung his legs over his head in a very fumbled back flip, landing loudly and clumsily on the other side of the couch. But before he could celebrate his extremely improbable landing, the girl who had had the misfortune to walk in just as Luke was landing let out a huge scream. Which only terrified Luke into screaming right back.

And that was how he met Julie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • "Now or Never" (obviously)  
> 


	2. Wake Up

Crammed into his uncomfortably tiny dorm bed in the room he was sharing with Reggie and Alex, Luke couldn’t sleep. Now was their year—it had to be. Last year had been rough. Just before the LFCM’s final showcase, where they performed in front of the whole school and a bunch of managers, their rhythm guitarist Bobby had dropped out of Sunset Curve and landed a manager after performing with his new band and “Crooked Teeth.” While Bobby’s parents had lawyered up with a very expensive and aggressive copyright lawyer, Luke’s parents hadn’t thought anything of consequence was really going on even when he’d explained that his songs had been stolen.

It had felt like a setback—it _was_ a setback, and the part of his heart that had birthed those stolen songs still felt deeply bruised, with a unique heartbreak attached to each and every song. But it also felt like an opportunity. Something about Sunset Curve hadn’t really felt complete to Luke, like there was a specific style or voice or instrument missing. He hadn’t ever been able to articulate to the guys or his instructors what it was, no matter how many rabbit holes he’d sent them all down in his quest for the missing sound. It was something intangible that he could _almost_ hear it when he’d written songs for Sunset Curve, but he’d never been able to pin it down.

He’d thought that he would have figured out what it was by now. They were two months away from this year’s showcase, from a chance to perform for managers and get their big break, and he was determined to nail it this time. They hadn’t talked about it, but he knew that the other guys also felt like this would be their last year at LFCM. After the summer, they would be starting their senior year of high school and their parents would finally realize that they weren’t going to apply to colleges, that they were planning to pursue music immediately after graduation. In a matter of months, they’d probably be cut off. This was their last chance to take advantage of the LFCM showcase, and he needed to crack that missing sound soon.

Luke slipped quietly out of bed and grabbed his journal, guitar, and key on his way out of the room. There was a semi-soundproof practice room off of the atrium of the dorm and he’d always found middle-of-the-night brainstorming sessions to be his most productive. But when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, he was surprised to hear the wafting sounds of a piano coming from the room. He was usually the only one who used the room this late in the night. But he was even more surprised when a voice joined the piano.

Voice was underselling it. Voice of an angel was underselling it. “Voice of an angel” tended to be used to describe voices that were pretty but thin. This voice was packed with power and sustained with expert vocal control. It was a voice that had definitely not been in the program before--he would never have forgotten that voice if he’d heard it before.

Luke drifted towards the door, peeking cautiously through the window. The girl he’d shocked with his surprise back flip sat at the piano, playing and singing with her eyes closed. Her face ran a gauntlet of emotions—inspiration and joy and freedom and… pain. Deep, profound pain. Through the grimy window, he couldn’t be sure, but he thought she might be crying.

This was a private moment, and he had no right to be there.

But as he retreated to the elevator, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just heard the sound that had long haunted him. He regretted more than ever that he had sent the girl running out of the dorm screaming before he could learn her name.

* * *

The next day, Reggie, Luke, and Alex were sitting together in the auditorium waiting for the start of their first modern vocal performance class of the summer. The boys were all doing three tracks of the music program—vocal, composition, and their individual instruments. The vocal track was always Luke’s favorite. He never felt like the others took composition as seriously as he did (Reggie and Alex said he tended to get “absolutely fucking insufferable”) and his guitar class just wasn’t as fun without having the whole band there to make faces to. Vocal hit the sweet spot of letting them work together on something they were all equally invested in.

Mrs. Harrison got up on the stage and clapped loudly to get their attention. “Alright, everyone should have a sample prepared for today’s initial assessment. You’ll be performing for one another and giving each other feedback. Remember, we want to be supportive, but we also want to be constructive. So point out things you like about each performer’s performance, but also mention areas that you think the performer should focus on improving for the next two months. Constructive critique is a very important part of musical performance, both as a form of respect that you show one another” her gaze lingered on Carrie “and for your own self-reflection. Is that all clear?”

A handful of half-hearted nods responded. Between the bobbing heads, Luke noticed that the Girl Who Screamed was sitting three rows ahead of them. She was curled in on herself, like she could disappear if she made herself compact enough.

“Okay, today we’ll have the soloists perform, and then tomorrow we’ll have ensemble singers.” The boys silently bumped their fists together and slumped down in their seats to get comfortable.

Honestly, the first performances were usually interesting—Luke liked sizing up his fellow performers and he genuinely enjoyed giving feedback. But today, he was just getting antsy waiting for the Girl Who Screamed to sing again. The girl she was sitting next to, Flynn, performed a solo and they had the awkward polite energy that he associated with new roommates, so she wasn’t in an ensemble. He was eager to hear her again, this time without the muffling of the door to the practice room. Would he get the same feeling that he’d gotten last night, that sense of rightness?

“Alright, final soloist of the day: Julie Molina. Julie?”

As the class gave a half-hearted round of applause and ~~Girl Who Screamed~~ Julie dragged herself up the steps to the stage, Luke nudged Reggie and Alex to make sure they were paying attention. “Wait until you hear this. This girl’s voice is insane.”

“Yeah, we heard it yesterday when you tried to murder her, remember?”

Luke elbowed Reggie sharply to shush him as Julie sat at the piano. She put her fingers on the keyboard, then took a deep breath and looked out at the auditorium.

He was anticipating her powerful voice filling the space, so he was surprised when what he did hear was a shaky exhale. She flinched away the stage lights, squeezing her eyes shut. For a moment, her face was full of that same pain he’d seen last night. They were too far away for him to see for sure, but he thought she might be breathing too quickly.

She jumped up and away from the piano as if it had spontaneously combusted, and the squeak of the piano bench against the floor echoed ominously in the otherwise silent auditorium.

“Well, first piece of constructive criticism—a panic attack isn’t a good vocal performance.” Carrie flipped her hair over her shoulder and giggled.

Luke normally didn’t engage with Carrie—he tended to think poisonous people were best left alone to sting themselves—but he could see how shiny Julie’s eyes were. “Hey, Carrie, constructive criticism—you singing isn’t a good vocal performance.”

Reggie and Alex stared at him open-mouthed, as did Mrs. Harrison, who had clearly not been expecting anything that had just happened. But it was too late for Julie, whose eyes only flicked to him briefly, tears visibly leaving her eyes, and then bolted off the stage towards the door. Flynn jumped out of her chair and followed quickly.

Mrs. Harrison let out a deep sigh. “Alright, we’re almost at the end of our time anyways, so we’ll pick up again tomorrow. Luke and Carrie, come speak to me so we can review the definition of _constructive_ criticism.”

As Luke got up out of his seat, Reggie wiped away mock tears. “You’re my hero.”

* * *

One verbal lashing and a very exhausting first day later, Luke once again found himself unable to sleep and heading down to the practice room. And once again, he was greeted by the sound of piano and a now familiar voice.

He crept closer, leaning against the door to try to get clearer listen.

_Wake up, wake up if it's all you do  
Look out, look inside of you  
It's not what you lost  
It's what you'll gain raising your voice in the rain  
Wake up your dream and make it true  
Look out, look inside of you  
It's not what you lost  
Relight that spark, time to come out of the dark_

Luke was so enthralled by her voice, her playing, and the lyrics that he had forgotten two crucial things—the door to the practice room was notoriously unreliable and it swung inwards.

The door opened violently and abruptly under his weight, depositing him on the floor of the practice room. Julie screamed and jolted back from the bench.

“Is this your thing? You jump out at people instead of saying hello?”

“I’m so sorry. I was just listening to you—”

From her facial expression, that was the wrong thing to say. “So, you were eavesdropping?”

“No, I—” What was it they said about honesty? “Um, yeah, I was. I’m sorry. About scaring you again. If I’m honest, I’m not sorry about eavesdropping because your voice is, like, killer.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “My voice is private.”

“Music school seems like a weird place to go if you don’t want people to hear you sing.”

She sighed and sat back on the piano bench, seeming to hug herself. “I applied ages ago, back when I used to sing for people. I didn’t want to go, but my dad...” Her eyes met his, and he could see that pain still lingering and a desperation to change the subject. “That girl earlier… You, um. I guess, thank you?” She paused. “That wasn’t a coherent sentence, was it?”

He couldn’t help but smile. “It’s my bad—apparently the way I say hello is very alarming.” He waved at her. “Hello, I’m Luke.”

“Julie.” She smiled, the first smile he’d seen from her. It was… a really good smile. “I was trying to say, you were the one who told Carrie off?”

“Yeah, she pissed me off. Are you… obviously not okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

She shrugged. “There’s not much to talk about. I shouldn’t be here.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down several feet from the piano bench, leaving her with plenty of space. “With your voice, your piano-playing? Dude, you’re like a human wrecking ball. I’ve been coming here three years now, and I’ve never seen anyone who deserved to be here more.”

She smiled awkwardly and looked away. Ugh, yet another instance of “Luke can’t human.” Too much passion directed at someone he didn’t really know. Her eyes landed on his guitar and she pointed at it, deflecting attention away from herself. “Did you want the room?”

He noticed his fallen journal and snatched it back up. “No no, I was just writing. There’s this piece that feels like it’s missing something. I usually think better in here, that’s all.”

She paused for a second, eyeing the journal. There was a tentative longing there, the itch to compose mixed with… whatever else she was dealing with. “Do you want a second opinion?”

He tried not to stare at her. “Are you on the composition track too?” Was this how Reggie felt whenever he saw pretty people? His eyes scanned her face. Actually, even exhausted and in raggedy pajamas, she definitely qualified as pretty people.

“Yeah, I missed today.” _Because I was having a panic attack_ hung in the air, unsaid.

“You didn’t miss much. Ortega’s first class is always him showing us pop songs that he thinks have shit lyrics and begging us to do better.”

She tapped the journal. “Are you doing better?”

“You tell me.” He passed it to her, open to “Bright.”

She read through it, humming along and occasionally pressing the keys on the piano, getting completely absorbed in a way that made him feel like he was looking in a mirror. After several minutes, she shook her head, coming out of the zone and meeting his eyes.

“You have a pencil?”

He’d never let anyone else write in his journal, but was he going to tell her that? He offered her the pencil, chuckling nervously. “Are the lyrics that bad?”

“No, the lyrics are solid. I think you’re at the point where you’re fixing the parts of the song that are working because you don’t know how to fix the parts that aren’t?”

There was something about how casually she threw it out, like she wasn't even paying attention to how well and how quickly she’d figured him out.

“You have a bunch of edits here around the pronouns. Leave the pronouns alone—they’re good. I think what you need is a higher vocal part? Maybe I’m biased, but it feels like there’s a voice missing, you know, like the whole song wants to be brightened up with a higher, sweeping voice, like a soprano or falsettist? And the opening… does anyone in your band play piano? Because I love that intro, but listen to it on piano.”

As she began to play the intro, he heard the whole song shift into alignment in his head. Of course, none of the guys _did_ play piano. But it was the start of an idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • "Wake Up"  
> 


	3. Bright

As Alex, Reggie, and Luke walked into the auditorium for vocal performance the next day, Luke’s eyes immediately found Julie. She was curled up next to Flynn again, looking just as small as she had the day before, but she smiled at him, and he tried to ignore the little answering skip in his chest.

Mrs. Harrison called them to attention. “Alright, we’re going to have ensembles today, but first we’ll finish up with our remaining soloist from yesterday. Julie?”

Julie rose from her seat shakily. The look of cold dread on her face couldn’t have been more opposite to the focused joy she had worn the night before when they had workshopped “Bright.” She perched behind the piano and glanced nervously at the crowd again. She flinched, the exact same way she had the day before, and the fact that this was playing out like a carbon copy of yesterday brought Luke to his feet.

“Sorry, Mrs. Harrison, I was supposed to email you about the ensemble change—Julie’s performing with us. I completely forgot. My bad.” Luke smiled, giving the instructor the giant puppy dog eyes that occasionally seemed to convince adults to just go along with him. He turned to the guys, nodding for them to come with him to the stage. To Alex and Reggie’s eternal credit, they gave him only the subtlest of confused glances before following him.

Luke jogged across the stage to Julie, pulled his journal out of his back pocket, and opened it to the right page. He set it in front of her on the piano’s music stand.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Just go with it.” She shook her head very slightly. She didn’t seem to be rejecting the idea of performing with them, but the idea of performing at all. “Don’t look out there. Look at the music while you play the intro and then come sing to each of us. Look at us, not them. We gotchu, I promise. You’re gonna rock this.”

She nodded, still shaky, but turned her attention to the journal. She took a deep, steadying breath and began to play. 

_Sometimes I think I'm falling down  
I wanna cry, I'm callin' out  
For one more try to feel alive  
And when I feel lost and alone  
I know that I can make it home_

He glanced at the guys, who were struggling to hide their shock behind a façade of “oh, yeah, we’ve definitely rehearsed and heard her voice before.”

_Fight through the dark  
And find the spark_

Julie caught his eye and he grinned encouragingly. She smiled back, and began to ramp up the power in her voice.

_Life is a risk but I will take it  
Close my eyes and jump  
Together I think that we can make it  
Come on, let's run_

The band began to play and she jumped up from the bench to join them in the middle of the stage, slowly starting to let her body dance along to the song.

_And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever  
And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever_

As Luke took over the second verse, Reggie invited Julie to join him with a nod of his head. Alex managed to quickly wave at her without missing a beat.

_In times that I doubted myself  
I felt likе I needed some help  
Stuck in my hеad with nothing left  
I feel something around me now  
So unclear, lifting me out  
I found the ground I'm marching on_

Reggie joined Luke for their pre-chorus duet, while Julie danced towards Alex, taking a moment of respite from having to face the audience.

_Life is a risk but we will take it  
Close my eyes and jump  
Together I think that we can make it  
Come on, let's run_

As they burst into the second chorus, Julie turned back to the crowd, keeping her eyes shut in what to the audience might just look like intense focus on her vocals.

_And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever  
And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever_

Luke began walking towards her as he sang his half of the bridge, performing with his full focus on her.

_In times that I doubted myself  
I felt like I needed some help  
Stuck in my head, with nothing left_

She grinned as she started singing her half and for the first time, he saw some of that happiness from the practice room sneak through the terror and pain.

_And when I feel lost and alone  
I know that I can make it home  
Fight through the dark and find the spark_

As the final chorus started, she turned towards the crowd and, caught up in their performance, opened her eyes. She trembled—he was sure no one but him noticed—and snapped her eyes shut, but continued to belt it out.

_And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever  
And rise through the night, you and I  
We will fight to shine together  
Bright forever_

As her final, perfect high note faded out, she whipped her head away from the crowd and looked at him. The beam on her face, the glee, the adrenaline, he knew—she was hooked. And as his heart fluttered at that look on his face, he realized he might be a bit as well.

The other vocal students burst into shocked applause. Luke almost jumped—he’d mostly forgotten that they were there. More than that, as he looked out at the crowd about to give him feedback, he honestly had no idea what he thought they’d say. Normally the music channel of his brain was hyper aware when he performed, searching for weaknesses and ways to improve, evaluating how effective different musical choices had been. And part of him was always searching for that missing sound, trying to pinpoint what it was and how it could be incorporated. But that part of his brain had been silent for the entire song.

It wasn’t that he thought it had been a perfect performance. He’d sung “Bright” through a couple times with Julie the night before, but never with the intention of performing it and never with the guys. Today’s performance had definitely been, as Reggie would say, “rough AF,” but underneath it was the core of something that felt more solid than anything he’d done before, a sense of rightness he couldn’t deny.

He clearly wasn’t the only one who was feeling it. Mrs. Harrison grinned up at them from her seat. “Finally found your missing sound, Mr. Patterson?” His grin couldn’t be contained. 

* * *

Luke wouldn’t have pegged Julie as being particularly strong, but she was steering him firmly through the hallway by the neck of his muscle tee. Alex and Reggie were jogging to keep up, looking very grateful that her rage was only tangentially directed at them.

She pulled him into an empty stairwell, the guys joining them apprehensively, and opened her mouth to start in on him. He beat her to the punch.

“I’m sorry. To you guys, too. I didn’t ask any of you beforehand and that wasn’t cool.” 

It seemed to somewhat take the wind out her sails. “I didn’t ask for a knight in sleeveless armor.”

“I wasn’t trying to be a knight. I didn’t plan it, I swear.” He glanced at the guys, realizing they were missing some context. “We ran into each other in the practice room last night and she helped me on ‘Bright.’” He turned back to her. “I wasn’t trying to save you or anything. I just… it seemed like you were … having a hard time being on stage by yourself, and we’re down a member and there’s been something missing from our sound for ages and as soon as I heard you, I realized it was you.”

Julie seemed to follow his run-on sentence better than he had. “So… you weren’t trying to play savior. You were being selfish?”

“Why not both?” he chuckled weakly.

She cocked her head at the three of them, thoughtful. “Missing sound?”

Reggie jumped in. “He’s been going on about this for years. He thinks that our sound is on ‘the edge of great’ and there’s something missing that he’s never been able to explain in a way that makes any sense.”

Alex nodded along. “He keeps having us test out a bunch of different instruments and styles, but nothing’s stuck. He once had us try Mongolian throat singing.”

“The Hu pulled it off!”

“Luke, we’re not heavy metal artists or classically trained in traditional Mongolian music, so I still don’t understand why you think the Hu was ever an appropriate reference point for Sunset Curve.”

Reggie rested his elbow on Alex’s shoulder, nodding emphatically. “Also, cultural appropriation—get woke, dude.”

Luke raised his hands defensively. “Reggie tried to turn us into a country band that one time. We’ve all made mistakes.”

Alex gestured at himself. “ _I_ haven’t made mistakes.” He stuck out his hand to Julie. “Alex.’

She shook his hand, amused by their banter. “Julie.”

“Reggie.”

“Still Julie.” She turned her sharp gaze back to Luke. “So, to recap: you have a savior complex, you’re selfish, and you’ve ‘made mistakes?’”

“I’m also very honest?”

She smiled in spite of herself and it was like a goddamn beam of light being shone in his heart. Luke found himself temporarily unable to speak. Shooting the dumbstruck Luke an amused look, Alex stepped in. “To be fair to this ridiculous person on my left, I didn’t get the ‘missing sound’ thing until that performance, but I do now. I know Luke and Reggie are questionable, but that was…”

“Killer,” Reggie supplied.

“It has the _potential_ to be killer.” Luke didn’t want anyone thinking he thought that was the best they could do. The other three shot him exasperated looks. “That was unrehearsed. We can definitely do better, but the bones of it, man. The bones of Sunset Curve were never that good. This could be big. Not just an ensemble at LFCM, but an actual band touring the world and slaying stadiums.” He turned back to Julie. “You’re a musician, here in your soul.” He thumped a fist over his heart. “You had to feel that, right?”

Her hesitation answered for her. Of course she had felt it. But, “I’m just… not good at being onstage at the moment.”

“We’ve all got stuff we’re working on,” Reggie smiled gently.

Alex nodded. “Even me.”

Luke caught her eye, speaking as sincerely as he could. “You joining our band would make it something really special.”

“Maybe you’d be joining my band.”

“Oh, what’s your band?”

“Julie and the Mistakes, apparently.”

“Can we workshop it?”

“Sorry, the name is non-negotiable.” She smirked at him. This girl… he had no idea what his face was doing in response to her sass, but Reggie and Alex were definitely exchanging an amused glance at his expense.

Luke stuck out his hand, palm down. “Okay, so we’re all good with that? The four of us, one killer sound, one collective wrecking ball of talent tearing up that showcase in August? Band name TBD?”

“Good by me.” Reggie and Alex put their hands on top of his. He met Julie’s gaze, raising a questioning eyebrow. A smile slid across her face and she added her hand to the pile.

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • "Bright"  
> • The HU (if you're not familiar with the Hu, I strongly recommend "Yuve Yuve Yu" and "Wolf Totem" as a starting place)


	4. Flying Solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who isn’t familiar with the theorbo, [here’s](http://www.theorbo.com/files/lyndatheorbo.jpg) an image for reference.
> 
> Playlist is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nyZ4ymF7jN6VbXPyMSyoZ?si=MwSHDQ31QyGKu8Otmv6i_Q)

“We’ve been dating for two years and you’ve never asked me to join your band.” Willie pouted from his spot draped over multiple chairs in the practice room.

Alex smiled fondly at him over his drum set. “Sweetie, you play renaissance lute.”

“Paul O’Dette was in a rock band before he started playing lute. We’ll make an early musician out of you yet.”

“You know I don’t know who Paul O’Dette is.”

Flynn, who was curled up on a bean bag chair next to Willie with her composition homework, shocked everyone by chiming in. “Your loss. He recorded the complete works of John Dowland, and John Dowland can get it.” She paused, looking up from her notebook. “Actually, he was a fancy white man in the 1500s. Probably an awful person. But that problematic dead boy could write.”

Julie, who was sitting next to Luke on the piano bench, giggled to herself.

“What’s so funny?” he nudged her, his voice quiet.

“I’m just picturing Alex playing the theorbo.”

He couldn’t help but grin back, even though “what’s funny about Alex playing the theorbo?”

She counted off on her fingers. “1) Theorbo is a ridiculous instrument, 2) who would be taller: Alex or the theorbo?, 3) the image of Alex playing a theorbo like a drum--”

“Why would he play it like a drum? It’s a plucked instrument.”

“I mean, why did my mind decide that Alex as an early musician would play the theorbo when renaissance drums exist? There are more fundamental questions you should be asking about how my brain works.”

“I did not do my due diligence when I invited you to join the band.”

She smirked. “When you invited me to join my band?”

“You don’t make any sense.”

“Probably regretting not doing your due diligence then, aren’t you?” She grinned at him, and Luke tried not to stare, very aware that there was a whole room watching them. But it was hard not to stare. Over the past few weeks, the pain Julie carried was slowly starting to… not vanish, but to live alongside other, lighter emotions. Flynn was clearly instrumental in that, boosting her confidence and providing unwavering emotional support as if they’d been friends for life instead of just four weeks. But he liked to think that the band helped as well.

She certainly helped him. She was the first person in his composition class to match his passion, and the only person he’d ever met who took every pronoun and preposition as seriously as he did. When they wrote together, they were completely in sync, as if they were sharing that music channel in his brain. And when they brainstormed ideas for getting the band out in the world beyond LFCM, she demonstrated a shrewd mind for capitalizing on new distribution methods. Granted, she still struggled with performance, and always seemed tense and on edge whenever she was onstage. But here in the practice room where the band, and sometimes Willie and Flynn, hung out, she was becoming increasingly comfortable and sure of herself.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to do the thing he loved more than anything in the world with someone who loved it just as much as he did, who inspired him on a daily basis with her artistry, talent, and power, and somehow remain calm. Luke was _not_ calm. He hadn’t known it was possible to feel simultaneously so not calm and so comfortable around someone.

Reggie found the whole thing endlessly entertaining. “I always wondered how Luke would balance dating and being in the band.” He flopped down on his bed after a long day in the practice room. “Obviously the answer was that he would date someone in the band.”

“First of all, shut up.” Luke groaned from his prone position on his own bed. Sure, he’d wondered the same thing himself, but it was one thing to worry about something privately and quite another thing for someone else to guess your worries without you having to voice them. “And second of all, we’re not dating!”

Alex perched primly on the edge of Luke’s bed. “You’re pre-dating.”

“Pre-dating is not a thing.”

“It is. It’s when everyone who knows you two is just waiting for it to happen, and if someone outside the group asks if you’re single, the answer is ‘technically, but more accurately, no.’”

“Again, not a thing.”

Reggie rolled over on the bed to look at them. “Oh no, it is. Nick asked us today if Julie was single and that was our exact answer.”

Ignoring the pain in his body, Luke sat bolt upright, almost unseating Alex. “Nick from modern guitar? Nick who’s so green his calluses haven’t even come in yet?”

Alex and Reggie exchanged an amused glance. “Julie’s not interested in Nick. You can only be in the pre-dating stage if it’s mutual.”

“How do you know it’s mutual?”

Reggie mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. Alex nodded gravely. “That’s confidential.”

There was no way Luke was dropping it that easily. “Flynn?”

“Confidential.”

“As my best friends, you gotta tell me if you have intel.”

Reggie started changing into his pajamas. “Not when it’s about our bandmate. All bandmates are equal and thus all intel is private.”

“But,” Alex put in. “As your friends, we don’t think you need to worry.”

* * *

Returning to the practice room in the middle of the night had become second nature. Julie rarely slept well and the practice room brought her comfort. So he wasn’t surprised to come in to see her tinkering on the piano and writing in her own notebook. She looked up when he entered and smiled softly, as if smiling too much in the middle of the night would wake up everyone in the dorm. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. Can I join you?”

“I left you a spot.” She nodded to the bench and he slid in next to her. Peeking at her notebook, he grinned his approval. “I really like this one.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not sure what deep dish is, but yeah.”

“Context clues.” She leveled her mock scolding look at him.

“I mean, I figured it out but… deep dish. It’s pizza.”

“Maybe _you_ should be doing early music. Your head’s all out of sync with the times.”

“That’s a great song lyric, I’m definitely writing it down.”

She beat him to the punch, flipping to a fresh page and scribbling it down. “If it’s not legible, it’s not much good to us.”

Nudging her playfully, he couldn’t not notice how close their grinning faces were and how their knees were pressed together.

“Anything in particular keeping you up?” He tried to keep his voice light—he never wanted her to feel like he was prying, but he also always wanted her to know she could talk to him.

“Just thinking about the mid-term performance next week.”

He turned towards her on the bench, tucking up one of his legs so he could face her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t even know what to say. Every time I try to think of a way to explain it, it feels like it comes out completely incoherent.”

His hand wrapped around hers as an impulse. “Your feelings don’t have to be logical.”

She pulled her thumb out from under his hand and rubbed the pad of her thumb over his knuckle. Without taking her eyes off of the movement, she spoke with a shaky voice. “A few months ago, I begged my mom to take me to this one gig, and on the way back we got in a car accident. I have this image in my head, from right before the other car hit us, of the headlights coming out of the dark and somehow knowing what’s about to happen. And now, every time I see anything that looks like a headlight, every time the lights are facing me when I’m onstage, it’s like I’m back in that car.”

He squeezed her hand, unsure of what to say. He’d noticed that Julie used past tense whenever she mentioned her mom, but she’d never explicitly mentioned her mother’s death before. “I’m so so sorry.”

Julie barely seemed to notice that he’d spoken. “It’s not even just about the lights. When I first started playing again afterwards, it was a way to reconnect with her. It felt like she was there. That I could communicate with her or honor her when I was singing. Performing became this private, personal thing, and it never used to be. So now when I’m in front of a crowd, it just feels… like I’m doing something wrong by singing if I’m not singing for her when she died because she was supporting my love of music.” Her loud sigh reverberated slightly in the practice space. “See? It doesn’t really make sense.”

His mind whirred, trying to think of something to say. “No, I get it. But… everything you’ve said about your mom makes it sound like encouraging you and your music was a big part of who she was. Obviously I didn’t know her, but I think if she’d had a choice between a long life not supporting you and a shorter one giving you everything she could, she would have chosen the latter.” A bitter part of him wished that his parents would have had a harder time making that same choice.

She nodded, still not looking at him. Something she’d clearly heard before that she wasn’t ready to internalize.

“And you can sing for her and for other people at the same time. It doesn’t need to be either or.”

“I know that here,” she tapped her head with her free hand. “But not here yet.” She tapped her chest and finally met his gaze, her eyes big and wet. He tightened his grip on her hand.

“There’s no rush. Is there anything we can do to support you?”

She shook her head, blinking back a smile. “You’re already doing a lot just by existing near me.”

“Alex is good emotional support, even if he hypothetically doesn’t know how to play the theorbo.”

“Not Alex. I mean, not not Alex, the guys are great, but when I said you, I was talking about you singular.” His heart stuttered. “I’m really glad I met you.”

“Right back at you.” The answering smile she gave him immediately imprinted on his heart. He had to swerve the conversation away from this—it was an entirely inappropriate moment to address his feelings. “I have an idea. What are you doing tomorrow night?”

* * *

“Karaoke?”

Julie flipped skeptically through the huge binder of songs. But this wasn’t Luke’s first rodeo. “Hear me out—it’s performing music in front of a crowd, but it’s not your music and it’s not really about music, right? Like, karaoke is at its best when it’s not an amazing musical performance--it’s you and your friends making fools of yourselves and sometimes adding new contexts to songs you all know. Karaoke is about experiencing joy in the form of music, not about music itself.”

Flynn, who was scrunched in next to Julie at the tiny table that was struggling to accommodate the group of six, put a semi-sarcastic hand to her heart. “That’s kind of beautiful, Luke.”

Alex shook his head, not looking up from the binder that he was intensely scrutinizing. “He has a whole manifesto about karaoke that we’ve had to hear develop over the last five years.”

Reggie stuffed a mozzarella stick in his mouth and nodded enthusiastically. “It started as ‘karaoke bad.’ It’s been really inspiring watching that evolve.”

Luke chucked a fry at his bandmate’s head, but his outrage dropped when he looked back at Julie. “When’s the last time you did karaoke?”

“It’s been a while.” Her tone indicated that “a while” meant “before her mother’s death.” “But I love karaoke. Sorry, I mean, I love experiencing joy in the form of music.”

She all but stuck her tongue out at him, and his answering dopey smile was only cut short by Reggie’s well-timed kick and by Flynn roping Julie into a rendition of “Shoop.”

The night flew by, with Reggie doing an extensive turn through what felt like Taylor Swift’s entire catalogue, Alex doing a very spirited dance to Neon Jungle’s “Trouble,” Willie managing to get the entire room clapping along to Five’s “Got the Feelin’,” and Reggie, Alex, and Luke nailing (if he did say so himself—and he did) a rendition of “Cups.” Reggie and Alex, the sneakiest of wingmen, even signed Luke up to perform “It’s The End of the World As We Know It.” A couple years ago, the guys had challenged each other to see who could best memorize and perform the song’s nightmarish verses, and as the insufferable champion, Luke had kept his lyrical knowledge in his pocket as a skill to impress people with. If he was being honest, this was the first time it had ever come up, but Julie’s shock when he didn’t need to look at the lyric screen once made it all worth it.

The whole night was full of relaxed laughter and a well-earned break from the stress of LFCM, but Luke’s favorite part of the evening, hands down, was watching Julie take the stage with increasingly levels of confidence (and often searching for his eyes in the crowd.) Annoyingly, even though he’d wanted to sing a song with Julie, every time he tried to ask her, Reggie loudly and repeatedly suggested Cake’s “Love You Madly,” which quickly shut Luke up. It wasn’t until the end of the night, when the attendant called out, “You’re Such A, last song of the night,” that Julie seemed to realize that she and Luke hadn’t sung together.

She tugged him to his feet.

“Come onnn, you _have_ to sing with me.”

He tried to keep his butt in the booth. “It’s not a duet.”

“Proper karaoke duets are awful. Duets for songs that aren’t duets are the true encapsulation of experiencing joy in the form of music.” He felt his resistance weaken at her effortless use of his manifesto. “Come on. Not afraid I’ll outshine you, are you, Patterson?”

If it had been a love song, he would have resisted more. But this couldn’t be too awkward, could it? He popped to his feet. “Bring it, Molina.”

She grabbed his hand (his hand!) and dragged him up to the stage, snatching up a mic. He reached for the second mic but she batted his hand away playfully.

“It’s meant to be practice for performance, right? So, shared mic.”

His brain temporarily shut off—one of the bands techniques for getting Julie through a stage performance was to have her sing with him rather than facing the crowd, but they hadn’t practiced it with a mic yet. He’d been both longing for and dreading being so close to her while she was unleashing her voice. And the karaoke microphones were very weak, so you had to have your mouth even closer to the mic to get it to pick up your voice. Sharing a karaoke mic was both unnecessary and a surefire way of bumping faces.

She was… flirting? 

Reggie would laugh at him later for framing this as a revelation, but in the moment he could only chuckle nervously. “Whatever you say, boss.” He leaned in to share the mic with her, acutely aware of how he could feel her breath on his face and how brown her eyes were.

_You keep calling, you keep calling  
Saying that you want it back  
All my loving, all my loving  
But you can't, you can't_

Four lines into the song and he suddenly realized that, actually, he maybe should have just gone all in and done “Love You Madly.” Singing about a ruined relationship with the girl he had a massive crush on might have been a fun exercise in proximity, but it was extremely uncomfortable.

_You keep trying, you keep trying  
With that sweet talk on your tongue  
But I'm not buying, I'm not buying  
I can't, I can't_

_'Cause you had your chance and you blew it  
Yeah, you ripped it up and you chewed it  
And the more you talk, you prove it  
Yeah, you prove it  
That, damn, you're such a_

_Did you think that I would let you  
Crawl right back into my bedroom_

Oh god. Why did he have to sing about bedrooms while touching noses with Julie?

_After everything we've been through  
I know the truth  
That, damn, you're such a  
Difficult little devil  
Trying to put it back together  
'Cause you see I'm doing better  
Without you now  
Damn, you're such a_

_Dadadadada dadadadada_

She tried to dance around for the “dadas” and stopped short when he didn’t move. “You have to dance! How can you not dance to this part?”

Shifting his hips side-to-side halfheartedly only prompted her to roll her eyes at him. “Dancing involves arms.” He sarcastically swung his arms in circles. “Oh my god, you’re terrible.”

He stuck his tongue out at her (yes, he, an almost-adult, stuck his tongue out at the girl he liked in public). “You’re the one not singing at _karaoke_.”

Shaking her head at him with disbelief, she jumped back in, pointedly:

_Are you joking? Are you joking?  
I can't, I can't_

_'Cause you had your chance and you blew it  
Yeah, you ripped it up and you chewed it  
And the more you talk, you prove it  
Yeah, you prove it  
That, damn, you're such a_

_Did you think that I would let you  
Crawl right back into my bedroom_

This time around, he was prepared for the bedroom line and, if he was honest, he sang it with a slightly suggestive smile. From the look of pleased surprise that crossed her face, he didn’t think she missed the change.

_After everything we've been through  
I know the truth  
That, damn, you're such a  
Difficult little devil_

She smirked during “difficult little devil,” making it flirty in a way he really hadn’t prepared himself for.

_Trying to put it back together  
'Cause you see I'm doing better  
Without you now  
Damn, you're such a_

When they reached the dada section, she mimicked his limp dancing. He stuck his tongue out at her (again! Still not how mature flirting works!) and surprised her with a stationary sideways shuffle that was, if he did say so himself (and he kinda had to) decent.

_You can take your lies to your next girlfriend_

Girlfriend, also a word he wasn’t capable of hearing from her while her nose was accidentally brushing against his cheek.

_'Cause I don't want to hear it anymore  
And if you're all that's left when the whole world ends  
No, I still don't want to hear it anymore  
Dadadadada  
Damn, you're such a  
Dadadadada_

As the music went quiet for a moment, he became acutely aware of the fact that they had touched noses while singing this song more often than they hadn’t. Her face was right there, just an inch away from kissing distance. The guys were going to make fun of him forever for this, weren’t they? But the joy on her face… worth it.

_Damn, you're such a  
Did you think that I would let you  
Crawl right back into my bedroom  
After everything we've been through  
I know the truth  
That, damn, you're such a  
Difficult little devil  
Trying to put it back together  
'Cause you see I'm doing better  
Without you now  
Damn, you're such a_

“DICK!” they both yelled to close out the song. The attendant shot them a dirty look, but the nearly empty karaoke bar didn’t seem to care.

She lowered the mic with a grin. “You make a pretty decent Hailee Steinfeld.”

“High praise coming from you. I assume? I don’t really know anything about Hailee Steinfeld.”

“But you know that song. You didn’t need to look at the lyrics.”

“I like how she basically managed to say ‘dick’ on the radio a lot without getting censored. Fight the power, man.” He held up an awkward power fist, still very aware of their closeness.

Reggie’s voice cut through the moment. “I think they want to close. You gonna stop flirting and get off the stage any time soon?”

Luke squeezed his eyes, willing his friend to vanish, but Julie just laughed, grabbed his hand, and dragged him off the stage. He was only too happy to follow.

* * *

Luke rode the high of karaoke night for the next several days and that, ultimately, was his downfall. He’d loved spending time with Julie outside the confines of LFCM, had loved seeing her relaxed and joyful and, yeah, he was maybe hoping there could be some close quarters mic sharing again. So he suggested that they do a dry run for their midterm at the Eats & Beats open mic night, completely forgetting who had introduced him to Eats & Beats.

He was rudely reminded when they walked in and saw who was setting up on stage.

Luke stopped short, causing Julie to run into him. “What the hell? Luke—”

Reggie immediately turned to him. “Let’s just go.”

“What’s going on?” Julie asked again.

Alex nodded tensely at the stage. “Bobby.”

His former bandmate was positioning himself at the front mic, ordering around a group of people that Luke didn’t recognize. Apparently the band Bobby had put together at LFCM last year hadn’t stuck. The vindicative surge of pleasure that went through Luke felt foreign, but it helped him to remember that they weren’t here on Sunset Curve business. Sunset Curve was done. Long live Julie and the Mistakes (working title). 

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll get our names on the list.”

But by the time Luke had gotten them a slot and joined the group at their table, Bobby had started playing. At the sound of the opening riff, Alex swore and Luke froze.

Gently bumping Luke’s shoulder with her own, Julie shot him a look of concern. “What is it?”

“My name is Luke.”

Looking across the table at Reggie, who was the least visibly in a state of rage, Julie sought clarification. “I don’t get it.”

“The song,” Reggie shot the stage the middle finger. “It’s called ‘My Name is Luke.’”

“He’s not the most subtle plagiarist, is he?” Julie placed her hand on Luke’s knee. Any other time, that would have taken the entirety of his focus, but right now it felt like an irritant, trying to soothe Luke when he didn’t want to be soothed. “Are you sure you don’t want to leave?” Luke just nodded tersely. Her grip tightened. “Luke, the best revenge is for our band to do well. Try to forget Bobby.”

But how could he, when Bobby was currently belting out the pre-chorus that had taken Luke weeks of sleepless nights to nail? “There is no Bobby anymore. Didn’t you hear? His name is Luke.”

The table smacked into a tense silence. Luke couldn’t take his eyes off of the stage. Every musical decision that Bobby made with the song that improved it made Luke furious. Every musical decision that undercut what Luke had loved about the song burned. Every musical decision that was the same one Luke had made sparked a memory of writing the song, of workshopping it with the guys, of all the effort and love and artistry he’d poured into it.

He barely noticed when Bobby’s band left the stage, or when the next several groups rotated through the stage. That song had been _personal_ : it had been about his journey with his own identity as a musician and a son and here was Bobby singing it, without feeding any of those emotions into it. It was like he’d ripped a page out of Luke’s diary after seeing how much pain had gone into the life lived behind the page, and slapped his name on it without even really reading it.

When the group going before them walked onto the stage, the attendant brought them back to the green room to prepare. As Reggie and Luke tuned, the silence underneath their repeated notes was cutting. Luke could feel Julie’s nervousness and Alex’s anxiety reaching out to him, begging for reassurance, but at the moment, he felt like if he opened his mouth, all that would come out would be scream. The attendant popped her head back in the room. “You’re on in one minute.”

Julie tried to catch his eye. “You good?”

“Of course. You and Alex go on, we’ll join when the rest of the band comes in.”

She squeezed his hand, but his hand stayed limp beneath hers. As Julie and Alex exited the green room, Luke made eye contact with the boy standing in the hallway. Bobby.

Luke rolled his eyes and turned away, but Bobby had already dashed in. “Dude, long time, no see.”

Reggie stepped between them. “Seriously?”

“Come on, you do what you gotta do, right?” he shrugged, unapologetic. It reminded Luke of the numerous discussions their band had had about privilege. Bobby’s stance had always, grossly, been to lean into his privilege under the guise of “gotta work with what you’re given, my dudes.”

From outside the room, they heard the beginning of Julie’s piano intro to “Finally Free” coming from the stage. Luke shoved past Bobby, heading for the door. “Excuse us.”

And then Bobby whistled. He fucking whistled. The intro to “My Name is Luke.”

“I gotta tell you, man. I owe you one. It really is a killer hook.”

Luke knew better. He knew that Bobby was baiting him, knew that violence was never a solution, that men punching things to express their rage was a horrible trope of toxic masculinity, that Julie was counting on him showing up on that stage, but… This guy, this guy used to be his friend, he had parents who supported him and lawyers to defend him and money to fall back on, he was so damn untouchable--

\--so Luke punched him in the mouth.

Reggie immediately tried to get between them, but Bobby had clearly been counting on Luke snapping and popped him in the eye. The attendant rushed to the doorway to see what the commotion was, but was too terrified (and probably underpaid) to intervene.

“Please stop!”

The manager rushed in and forced them apart with the practiced strength of a lifetime exposure to toxic bullshit. She glared at them both. “Gentleman, you will leave right now. You are never welcome to come back.”

“My band’s onstage, we were supposed to—”

“OUT.”

* * *

Luke and Reggie waited out front for Alex and Julie. Luke was mentally counting the runtime of the song in his head, trying to guess when they’d finish and find out where the guys had gone. But they were only waiting half a minute before the front door opened and Julie rushed out, gasping for breath, with Alex right on her heels. She stopped short at the sight of Luke, her eyes snapping to the stinging part of his face where Bobby had punched him. He didn’t need to say anything. She knew.

“Did you… did you get in a fight?”

“Julie, I’m—”

“We told you we could leave! Like, a dozen times! Why did you insist on staying if you knew you couldn’t handle it?”

Reggie stepped toward her half-heartedly. “In Luke’s defense, Bobby provoked him—”

Alex shook his head urgently at Reggie to shut him up, but it was too late. Julie wheeled on him. “Luke is not Anne Shirley. He doesn’t get to assault people who piss him off.”

“Julie—” Luke tried desperately to get her to look at him, but she was backing away and shaking her head.

“This was a mistake. This whole band thing was an absolute mistake.”

“Julie, please, can we just get an Uber and—”

“No. _Alex and I_ will get an Uber. I don’t really give a fuck what you do.”

She whirled away and stormed off. Luke couldn’t even meet Alex’s eyes, but he grabbed Alex’s arm to stop his friend from following Julie immediately. “What happened?”

“What do you think? We got to the chorus, she didn’t have anyone to sing to, they flashed the spotlight in her face, she had a panic attack and ran off stage.” Luke could see it all playing out in his head, felt the physical pain of it. Alex shrugged him off. “I hope punching Bobby was worth it.”

Alex hurried after Julie, leaving Luke with a stinging face and a gut full of guilt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • Paul O’Dette ([“An Untold Story” ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVKw5AZr4is) is one of my favorites, but if you're curious about Dowland, something like [”The King of Denmark, his Galliard”](https://open.spotify.com/track/293n8mdKLxSbyKRbpLWKIO?si=C8z6W3DXTiGfwQctj5tKQA) is good)  
> • Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop” (a missing moment from this chapter is definitely Luke’s reaction to Julie singing the “Girls, what’s my weakness? MEN” line)  
> • Taylor Swift (Reggie sings the goat version of “I Knew You Were Trouble” every time he does karaoke, and the audience _never_ appreciates it)  
> • Neon Jungle’s “Trouble”  
> • Five’s “Got the Feelin’” (the song I listened to the most when I was writing the karaoke section)  
> • Anna Kendrick’s “Cups (When I’m Gone)”  
> • R.E.M.’s “It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” (Like Luke, I memorized the lyrics one weekend in the hopes that it would come in handy someday. Shockingly, it has not.)  
> • Cake’s “Love You Madly” (I was so so tempted to have Julie and Luke sing this, so I had to make some nod towards it)  
> • Hailee Steinfeld’s “You’re Such A”


	5. Finally Free

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for the kudos and comments so far! This has been my first time writing a fic that isn’t a POV one based on an episode, and you’ve all made it a lovely, encouraging experience!

On the one hand, Luke knew that Julie needed space. On the other hand, they had a very real midterm to perform in three days.

So after a night of very little sleep, when Luke entered the atrium and saw Julie sitting on the couch wearing her headphones, he tentatively approached her.

“Julie, can we—”

She cut her eyes to him with a look that was more effective than a middle finger, and upped the volume on her headphones, letting the faint sounds of “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” bleed out pointedly.

“I’m really sor—”

“Oh no.” Seemingly appearing out of nowhere, Flynn stepped between them, her fury turning her tiny frame into an unmovable wall. “Boy, bye.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled lamely, backing away.

Reggie and Alex were waiting by the door, looking unimpressed, until they both unleashed happy waves to someone behind him. He spun around and was shocked to see Julie smiling and waving back at both of his bandmates.

As they walked out of the dorm, Luke turned to Reggie. “Why isn’t she mad at you?”

“Oh, because I told her that Reggie only didn’t show up because he was trying to help you out of your bullshit,” Alex said unapologetically.

Luke stopped walking. “Dude.”

“Dude yourself. Blame should go where it’s due.”

“I know I screwed up.”

“Awesome, saves me having to tell you.”

Luke sagged against the wall of the dorm. “What the hell do I do?”

Alex crossed his arms. “You apologize. To us, too, by the way.”

It hadn’t even occurred to him to apologize to his bandmates, which just made him even angrier at himself. “Fuck, sorry—”

“A real apology.”

“I know, that was ‘sorry that I didn’t apologize before.’ Here’s the actual apology: I’m sorry. I screwed up an opportunity for all of us. Alex, I abandoned you on stage, and Reggie, I put you in a situation where you could have gotten hurt, and those aren’t okay things for me to do to anyone, let alone my brothers. In the future, I’ll always put you guys first.”

Alex took Luke’s speech in and then nodded his approval. “Good apology.”

He and Reggie leaned on the wall on either side of Luke.

“What the hell do I say to Julie?”

Reggie shook his head. “Yeah, that’s tough. Definitely groveling.”

“Probably more than words, too, Luke. You should have seen her on that stage.”

Luke squeezed his eye shut, as if that could prevent the onslaught of images of Julie’s fear and pain. Hopelessness flooded his body. “There’s nothing I can do to make it right.”

“Duh. Apologies usually aren’t about erasing your mistakes. You did what you did. Give her a couple days, then own the fact that you did it, show her that you understand the pain you caused her, and commit to never doing it again.”

Luke opened his eyes to see Reggie staring at Alex with awe. “Alex, you’re so wise.”

Alex shoved off the wall with a nod. “I really am.”

* * *

Two days later, Julie still hadn’t so much as looked at Luke. He had debated with himself back and forth about what to do, and still hadn’t settled fully on an idea. But then he heard Julie approach Mrs. Harrison a few minutes before their vocal performance class. “Mrs. Harrison, can I talk to you about my midterm performance tomorrow?” He had run out of time.

Before his feet had completely gotten input from his brain, Luke found himself on stage. He switched on the mic and cleared his throat in it loudly to get everyone’s attention. Julie stared at him with narrowed eyes. Reggie covered his eyes.

Luke opened his mouth and started to improvise new lyrics to “You’re Such A”:

_I keep calling, I keep calling  
Saying I want you back in the band  
Singing with me, singing with me  
But you can't, you can't_

He gestured at himself with contrition. Julie raised an eyebrow, unmoved.

_I keep trying, I keep trying  
With that sweet talk on my tongue  
But you’re not buying, you’re not buying  
you can't, you can't_

Mrs. Harrison started towards the stage. “Mr. Patterson, that’s enough.” He danced out of her grasp.

_'Cause I had my chance and I blew it  
Yeah, I ripped it up and I chewed it_

He had to jump down off the stage into the audience in order to escape Mrs. Harrison.

_And the more I talk, I prove it  
Yeah, I prove it  
That, damn, I’m such a_

_Did I think that you would let me  
Crawl right back into the practice room_

Julie rolled her eyes at his edit, but then immediately laughed as he, in his efforts to avoid Mrs. Harrison, stumbled over a row of chairs.

_After everything we've been through  
I know the truth  
That, damn, I’m such a  
Difficult little devil  
Trying to put it back together  
'Cause I see you’re doing better  
Without me now  
Damn, I’m such a_

He leapt over a pile of backpacks. “Mr. Patterson, stop this immediately!” 

_Dadadadada dadadadada  
Damn, I’m such a  
Dadadadada  
I know the truth  
That, damn, I’m such a_

_I can take my lies to my next bandmates  
'Cause you don't have to hear it anymore  
And if I’m all that's left when the whole world ends  
No, you still don’t have to hear it anymore  
Dadadadada  
Damn, I’m such a dick._

He dropped to his knees in front of Julie and clasping his hands apologetically. Finally catching up to him, Mrs. Harrison snatched the mic away. “Out. You can come back when you can act your age.”

But all he had eyes for was Julie’s face, slightly softened and giving him a tiny nod.

* * *

“That wasn’t actually an apology.” Julie leaned in the doorway of the practice room where Luke, Alex, and Reggie were hanging out. Alex and Reggie immediately fled.

Luke stood up awkwardly. “I know. But I embarrassed you, so step one, embarrassing myself. I know it wasn’t the same, but...”

“They weren’t your best lyrics.” Something in her tone gave him hope.

“Yeah, well, I was writing solo. My writing partner, uh, she makes me a better writer.”

She didn’t smile, just looked at him. He shuffled nervously. “Right, so, step two. I’m really sorry. It wasn’t cool for me to bail on you like that. I know how hard it is for you to get onstage and I should have been there with you.”

“So why weren’t you?”

He sighed and sat back down on the piano bench. She moved closer so she could see his face.

“There’s a lot of baggage with Bobby that has nothing to do with him, you know? When Bobby lawyered up, my parents didn’t think it was worth hiring a lawyer because they didn’t think I’d written anything worth stealing. So the Bobby stuff… it just hurts in all kinds of ways and I guess I’m bad at anticipating how much it hurts sometimes.” Julie sat tentatively at the other end of the piano bench, somehow managing to keep her distance despite the small size of the bench. His gaze fell to his hands. “I’m still working through some stuff there, I guess. I’ve just gotta accept that my songs are gone and Bobby’s gone and Sunset Curve is gone and maybe my relationship with my parents is gone.”

“It’s okay if you’re not over it.” Her voice was gentle, much gentler than he thought he deserved. “I just need to know if I can count on you.”

He nodded, trying to convey with his eyes how sincere he was. “This band, and you, are more important to me than Sunset Curve ever was. You’re the missing sound I’ve been looking for for, like, my entire life. You’re, like, this powerhouse. Ooh, you’re the mitochondria of the band!” For a second, he thought he’d found a cool way to express how important she was, but the unimpressed look she shot him quickly doused those hopes. “Okay, I clearly don’t really know how to say how much I value you, but I should have at least acted like it. I promise it won’t happen again.”

She smiled tensely. “I hope that’s true.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“That’s definitely true.” But her smile was a little softer, and her voice teasing. “Grab your guitar. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

When they took the stage the next day, there had been a couple changes from what they’d rehearsed for the weeks before. Instead of Luke and Reggie joining Julie and Alex on stage for the chorus, Julie had made a hard rule about the boys going out before her. It left Luke feeling a bit awkward: it was hard to stand on stage in a way that didn’t distract from Julie’s opening solos while also not making him look like a block of wood. But he accepted that it was a super reasonable measure—maybe if he re-earned her trust, they could work on the entrances again, but for now he understood her need to know they were onstage before they started performing.

The other change was in their name, where Julie had decided to commemorate him ghosting her: Julie and the Ghosts (working title). 

What hadn’t changed was that sense of complete rightness that settled over him when they took the stage and Julie began to sing.

_Hearts on fire  
We're no liars, so we say what we wanna say  
I'm awakened, no more faking  
So we push all our fears away_

Julie looked up from her keyboard, her eyes sparkling in the way they did when it was just her and the piano. As her eyes met his, he felt himself melt, and an extra sparkle lit her eyes.

_Don't know if I'll make it 'cause I'm falling under  
Close my eyes and feel my chest beating like thunder  
I wanna fly  
Come alive  
Watch me shine_

As Reggie and Luke began playing, Julie jumped up from her piano and began singing and dancing center stage, managing to make the fact that she never made direct eye contact with the audience look mostly natural.

_I got a spark in me  
Hands up if you can see  
And you're a part of me  
Hands up if you're with me  
Now till eternity  
Hands up if you believe  
Been so long and now we're finally free_

Julie turned to Reggie, dancing with him as she began the second verse.

_We’re all bright now, what a sight now  
Coming out like we’re firеworks  
Marchin’ on proud, turn it up loud  
Cause now we know what we'rе worth_

Luke joined his voice to hers, and when he looked over to enjoy the perfect harmony of their voices, his heart skipped a beat at the realization that she was looking right back at him with the same intensity, not breaking eye contact.

_We know we can make it  
We're not falling down under  
Close my eyes and feel my chest  
Beating like thunder  
I wanna fly  
Come alive_

Their voices blending together was so sweet that his heart broke a little when they uncoupled so she could finish the verse by herself.

_Watch me shine_

_I got a spark in me  
Hands up if you can see  
And you're a part of me  
Hands up if you're with me  
Now till eternity  
Hands up if you believe  
Been so long and now we're finally free_

As Julie brought the mic to him for their duet, he suddenly felt too aware of his body, because this was the moment he’d been waiting to replicate since karaoke. She stared directly into his eyes, and he felt the words they sang to each other ringing deep within him. He’d written the lyrics before he’d known her, and she was only singing to him onstage to avoid triggering a panic attack, but somehow this song felt written for exactly this moment and exactly the two of them.

_I got a spark in me (I got a spark in me)  
And you're a part of me (And you're a part of me)  
Now till eternity (Now till eternity)  
Been so long and now we're finally free_

As they broke apart again, he caught Alex and Reggie exchanging an amused glance. Reggie winked at Luke, but since Luke couldn’t stick his tongue out at his bandmate in the middle of a performance, he focused on putting all his energy into his guitar and voice for the final chorus.

_I got a spark in me  
Hands up if you can see  
And you're a part of me  
Hands up if you're with me  
Now till eternity  
Hands up if you believe  
Been so long and now we're finally free  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah  
I got a spark in me (Ooh)  
Hands up if you can see  
And you're a part of me (A part of me, yeah)  
Hands up if you're with me  
Now till eternity (Ooh)  
Hands up if you believe  
Been so long and now we're finally free_

The guys all went silent to allow Julie to sing the final line by herself.

_Finally free_

He knew he was doing the kind of dopey, private smile that should be reserved for off stage, but her voice was so beautiful, so controlled, and in the moment she sang it, he relived all the time he’d spent working on drafts of the song, trying to capture the perfect ending. And now here she was, and she was perfect in ways he hadn’t anticipated and couldn’t have thought to look for.

He’d spent all this time searching for the thing that was missing. He’d always assumed it was a sound missing from the band. But maybe it was actually a person, this person, missing from his life.

Oh, fuck. He was a goner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When in doubt, Ten Things I Hate About You.
> 
> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • Taylor Swift’s “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” (a missing moment from this chapter is Julie and Flynn singing this on repeat all night in a rage fest)  
> • “Finally Free”


	6. Edge of Great

After several hours in the practice room with Luke and Julie trying dozens of slight variations to get “Stand Tall” to match with what they had their heads, Reggie and Alex had gotten fed up and headed out with Willie to watch _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_. Unfortunately, this left Luke and Julie unattended to indulge in their search for perfection, and they’d rapidly run through all the normal language they had to describe what they were aiming for. 

“It just needs a slightly different flavor, you know?” Luke paced in front of the piano, as if he could physically catch up with the fix for the song if he could just walk fast enough. “Like, right now it’s a bit too salty and I want it to be more umami. Do you know what I mean?”

She leaned back on the piano bench. “I know what you’re getting at, but no, that doesn’t help at all.” She traced her fingers over the keys. “The showcase is pretty important to you, isn’t it?”

“Managers are going to be there. People have gotten signed out of this.” People meant Bobby, but still. “This song needs to be perfect. Oh!” He snapped loudly as it came to him, startling her. “You know Jukebox the Ghost?”

“Yeah, not exactly our sound though?”

“Not ‘Hold It In’—”

“—great song though.”

“Killer song.” 

She rolled her eyes fondly. “I’m not convinced you know any adjectives other than ‘killer.’”

He stuck his tongue out at her (when, oh, when was he going to learn a new reaction to her?). “I was thinking more ‘Fred Astaire.’ Not as a direct reference, but that blend of salt and umami.”

She tilted her head, trying to retrieve the memory of the song. “Which one is that?”

“ _Those eyes, damn those eyes, get me every time._ ” His eyes locked on hers while he sang and leaned on the piano towards her. He’d worried after what had happened at Eats & Beats that they wouldn’t get any more moments like this, but the shy smile spreading over her face said otherwise. “ _Those eyes, in those eyes, I can do no crime / When I dance like I don’t care / you call me Fred Astaire._ ”

She shook her head, but didn’t break their eye contact. “I definitely don’t call you Fred Astaire. Your dancing is—”

“Legendary. See, I know other adjectives.”

“False adjectives.”

He grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet and twirled her around, singing the second verse. “ _All my idiosyncrasies / You like 'em._ ” She shot him a dubious look. “ _Annoyed at all the little things I know / I can be frustrating._ ”

“Finally, an accurate lyric.”

He spun her in close to him, her face inches from him. In response to her proximity, his voice dropped lowered. “ _But you still like me when I'm dancing._ ”

She met his gaze. “Prove it.” But the sass she intended was missing, and it felt more like a challenge than a disagreement. He was about to lean in when--

\--the door banged open. They jumped apart to see Flynn standing in the doorway. She shot him a deeply unimpressed look before turning her attention to Julie.

“I’m on an urgent fro yo mission. You need to stop me from getting gummy bear toppings. I always get gummy bears, it’s always a mistake, gummy bears don’t belong on fro yo, so help me, Julie-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

Julie hopped away from Luke with an awkward smile. “Okay, but _I’m_ still getting gummy bears.”

As Julie packed up her bag, Luke tried to pull a smile out of Flynn. “How was your lesson today? You kill it?”

“Obviously.” She flipped her hair with a mock confident grin. But there was something missing from her grin, a warmth that immediately returned when she looked at Julie. “Ready?”

“Yep.” Before Julie reached the door, she spun back around to Luke. “Oh, before I forget. My dad thought we should do a garage party this weekend? Play something, he’ll get his cinematographer friends to shoot it, and we can put it on YouTube?”

“Oh, that’d be kil—rad.” She shook her head at his correction, not buying it. “What do you wanna perform? ‘Great’?”

“Yeah, I think ‘Great’ is a… great choice.”

Before Luke could get lost in smiling at her, Flynn grabbed her friend’s arm and pulled her out of the practice room. “Come on, Mama needs her fro yo.” 

* * *

“Does Flynn hate me?” Luke asked the second he walked into his dorm room.

Alex, Willie, and Reggie were in a cuddle pile on Alex’s bed, watching _Buffy_ on Alex’s laptop. Reggie held up five fingers. “Could you maybe come back in five minutes after this scene—”

Alex smacked him on the arm and closed the laptop. Luke’s heart dropped. “I was hoping it was just a ‘yes or no’ question and that the answer was ‘no.’”

“She doesn’t hate you as a person. I think she just has… concerns about you and Julie.”

“You _think_?”

“Confidentiality, remember?”

Luke turned to Willie. “You’re not bound by confidentiality.”

Smiling apologetically, Willie cuddled under his boyfriend’s arm. “But I am bound by the boyfriend code of pretending that Alex doesn’t tell me everything.”

“Come on!” Luke groaned.

The three boys mimed zipping their lips and throwing away the keys, and then crossed their arms. It was far too synchronized.

“... did you practice that?”

Reggie shrugged unapologetically. “We have to do _something_ during Riley’s scenes. We aren’t going to watch them like a bunch of chumps.”

Plopping down on his bed, Luke laughed joylessly. “Can you at least tell me what problems _you_ would have with me and Julie?” The boys glanced at one another again. “Wait, _do_ you have problems with us?”

Reggie held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I’m Team Jukebox all the way.”

“Alex?”

Alex set aside the laptop, stalling for time as he collected his thoughts. “‘Problems’ is a strong word. I said ‘concerns.’”

“Is it what happened at Eats & Beats?”

Alex shook his head, but Reggie shrugged. “Probably didn’t help.”

“But,” Alex cut in, “It’s more that what happened at Eats & Beats emphasized how much the timing sucks. She’s grieving, the band is a big emotional lifeline for her right now, and if something goes wrong, then either being in the band becomes really uncomfortable for her or she leaves it. Either way, it stops being an emotional safe space for her.”

“Plus,” Willie added, “the long distance.”

Alex whipped his head around, Luke temporarily forgotten. “You think long distance relationships are bad?”

“Not ours, babe, it’s so worth it, but you know the distance sucks. And if you have any problems in your relationship, the distance, like, amplifies it like a… well, an amplifier.”

Alex gestured at Willie as if presenting him to the group. “Gentlemen, my boyfriend: a scholar.” Willie nudged him, mock outraged. “A scholar who makes a good point.”

Luke was grateful for at least one thing that was easy to argue with. “Okay, but Julie and I wouldn’t be long distance. We both live in LA!”

“Luke.” Alex managed to make his name sound like “oh, honey.” “She lives on the east side, you’re on the Westside. Everyone knows an east-west relationship in LA is long distance. And you’re not just on the Westside, you’re in _Mar Vista_. To visit her, you have to take the 10 to the 101.”

Reluctantly, Luke admitted, “Actually, depending on traffic, it’s the 405 to the 101.” Reggie winced, like a world class traitor. “Dude, you’re supposed to be on my side!”

“I still ship it! It’s just… the 405 to the 101. I couldn’t do it.”

Luke groaned loudly and leaned back against the wall behind his bed. Alex got up to give him a side hug. “I’m not saying don’t do it. But I don’t think Flynn’s wrong to be concerned, you know? If you’re going to do it, you need to be sure and you need to be careful. It’s a normal pre-relationship thing to think about. If there are potential problems, make sure you’ve either addressed them or have a plan for how you’re going to deal with them. Now, come watch _Buffy_ with us and take your mind off it.”

“Can we watch the prom episode?” Luke asked miserably.

“Luke, the prom episode is reserved for emotional DEFCON 1 situations. This isn’t that. All I’m saying is, if you’re going to date Julie, go in with open eyes. And maybe some Uber credit. Okay?”

Luke nodded, but as he joined the cuddle pile, the churning worries in his stomach made him think he might be watching the prom episode sooner rather than later. 

* * *

“Holy shit, there are chairs on the ceiling!” Reggie spun around in the middle of the studio, staring up with his mouth open.

“Couch!” Luke flung himself down on said couch.

Julie chuckled from her spot in the doorway. Alex propped his elbow on her shoulder and shook his head. “I’m sorry about these heathens. They’ve never been in public before.”

“There’s a loft with a bean bag chair.”

“Okay, byeee,” Alex dashed up the stairs.

Reggie stared at Julie. “You live, like, ten minutes from LFCM. Why do we spend all our time hogging the smelly practice room when this place exists? Come to think of it, why are you even in the dorms?”

“Wanted the full summer college experience.” From the way she picked at a loose thread on her sweater and refused to look around the room, Luke knew that wasn’t the full answer, but Reggie was too enamored with the ceiling to notice.

“All you need is a mini-fridge and this place would be perfect.”

“Well, there’s a fridge-fridge, like one hundred feet away.” She pointed in the direction of the main house. Reggie’s head whipped around.

“Did you get the hot dogs?”

“I did. I don’t know that they’re ‘authentic street dogs’ as requested, but I think they should qualify for your pre-gig ritual. They’re also probably less likely to kill you.”

From his spot on the couch, Luke noticed that there was a thin layer of dust on the piano. He frowned, only partially listening as Reggie roped Alex into making hot dogs.

“Luke! Hot dogs!”

He tore his gaze away from the dust. “Yeah, in a minute. You guys start cooking?”

As their footsteps faded away, he sat up and caught Julie’s eyes.

“Your mom’s studio?”

She nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “She, um, taught me to play piano right there. The loft was my ‘private creative space,’ and we co-wrote most of our songs on that couch.”

He stood up, feeling as if he’d been sitting on her ghosts. “Is this your first time back in here?”

“I came to get my keyboard once, but, yeah. I play in my room pretty exclusively now.” She finally lifted her eyes to look around the room. “Today will be good though. I need to get better at being in here. Once LFCM’s over, this will probably be our best practice space, right?”

“If it’s okay with you. None of our parents are really rushing to build us private studios.” He tried to keep his voice light, shielding the bitterness.

She nodded, trying to convince herself. “It’ll be good to get back in here with other people. And I think my mom would like it, me rehearsing in here with you guys.” He was torn between feeling happy at what she said and pained by the reminder of Alex’s comment about the band as her emotional lifeline. “Though I guess it’ll be a bit of a trek for you? Mar Vista, right?” He’d never told her where in LA he lived, so the fact that she’d found out from someone else and remembered drew a smile from him. “That’s, what, the 10 to the 101?”

His smile turned bitter. “Or the 405.”

“That’s brutal. I have Uber credit if you ever need it.”

The significance of what she’d said was lost on her, but he couldn’t help grinning. He also couldn’t help noticing that she was keeping herself decidedly apart from him, staying in the doorway of the studio with her sweater wrapped around her. He felt the distance as a palpable chill between them, and he desperately wanted to close the gap.

“Why _are_ you in the dorms?”

She hugged herself. “My dad thought I might benefit from being in a new space. Get a break from home, immerse myself in music and the program. He wasn’t wrong.” Her voice trailed off as she took in the studio and inhaled shakily. “What about you?”

“You know what they say about LA—west to east is long distance.” He glanced at her, trying to judge her thoughts on the matter. But when she didn’t react, he continued. “My parents… they thought maybe we should be long distance for a bit.”

Her face fell. “I’m so sorry.” 

He leaned against the piano, projecting a casualness he didn’t feel. If he opened up about his parents now, he wasn’t going to be able to bring the triumphant energy to ‘Great’ that he needed to. “I’m lucky, really. Some people spend decades searching for their found families. I met mine in kindergarden. Couldn’t ask for a better family than the guys.”

“I love that. The band as your family.”

He winced internally at the idea of Julie as family. “Not the band, just Alex and Reggie. Bobby was never really part of that.”

“And me?”

“You’re… Julie.”

“And what’s a Julie?”

Oh, so many possible answers. But she was still in the doorway, not really looking at him, and Flynn’s potential concerns were rattling around in his brain. So he avoided the cheesy answer he wanted to give.

“A Julie is… a wrecking ball who lives in a category of human entirely to herself. Untouchable by mere mortals.” He pushed off the piano, ignoring her confusion. “We should go eat before we have to set up.” 

* * *

Luke made the mistake of biting into yet another hot dog just as Julie descended down the stairs in her concert outfit. He inhaled at the sight of her… which meant he inhaled the hot dog as well. Reggie had to whale on his back to dislodge the large chunk of food from his throat.

Flynn followed her with a triumphant grin. “Yes, thank you, I am an artist.” She hugged Julie. “With an incredible canvas.” Julie grinned, exuding a soft girlish joy and shy comfort that she only ever seemed to unleash around Flynn.

“Can someone help me move the piano?” Julie asked.

Luke moved forward to help, but got struck by another coughing fit, his throat still not feeling quite normal. Julie pointed at him. “Not you. Drink a whole glass of water and don’t die before we perform. It’s bad luck.”

“Bad luck for who?” he rasped.

“You, obviously.” She flashed him a grin. As Julie, Alex, and Reggie headed towards the back door, Flynn stopped her temporarily with a hand on Julie’s arm.

“Just think about what we talked about, okay?” Flynn murmured quietly, glancing briefly at Luke. Julie nodded tensely, then quickly headed toward the garage without another look at him.

Luke filled up a glass of water, very aware of the silence in the kitchen between him and Flynn. “I’m not going to hurt her again.”

He turned to look at her. Flynn crossed her arms and leaned against the kitchen wall.

“You will.” He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head. “That’s not personal. Everyone in every kind of relationship hurts each other sometimes.”

“But that’s normal stuff. You seem to think there’s something more.”

Flynn eyed him, then nodded. “You’re teenagers, so odds are pretty high you’ll break each other’s hearts. And I think you’re the kind of guy whose head is so all up in his music that you’ll act perfectly normal and unaffected by everything. She’ll be a mess, and you’ll be trying to share a mic and sing romantic lyrics at her. Because that makes for a good performance, and at the end of the day, Julie is in your band and the band part is more important than the Julie part.”

“I don’t—” The overwhelming wrongness of what she said tangled his mind, like there were so many arguments trying to rush out of his mouth at the same time that they tripped over themselves and blocked the exit. He’d been expecting to hear a version of what Alex had said, and the new concerns gave him whiplash.

“Isn’t that why you punched Bobby? Because you cared more about a song than you did about her as a human being?”

“That’s not fair.”

Flynn shrugged. “Maybe not. I don’t really know you that well. I just don’t want her getting her heart broken on top of everything else.”

“Neither do I.”

“I hope so.” She pushed off the wall and reached for the back door, then paused. “I think some of the midterm feedback about her not looking at the crowd may have gotten to her, and she might try something. Keep an eye on her out there, will you?”

“Of course.” 

* * *

As Julie came out to the applause of her group of friends, Luke felt the rush of the crowd. Something about this gig felt like their first real one—not awkwardly playing on an auditorium stage that wasn’t meant for a rock concert, but the kind of backyard gig he and the guys had played when they first started out. “Finally Free” had been great, but this… this felt like the real beginning.

Julie sat at the piano, and with a deep breath, began to play and sing:

_Running from the past  
Tripping on the now  
What is lost can be found, it's obvious  
And like a rubber ball  
We come bouncing back  
We all got a second act, inside of us_

As the rest of the band joined in, Julie jumped up and immediately began to dance and sing with Reggie.

_I believe  
I believe that we're just one dream  
Away from who we're meant to be  
That we're standing on the edge of_

She turned around to face Alex, sharing a grin with him.

_Something big, something crazy  
Our best days are yet unknown_

Then she spun past Luke. He had stepped out toward her, excited to sing with her, but she turned fully to the crowd, her eyes shut. What? They’d rehearsed her singing with him. 

_That this moment is ours to own  
'Cause we're standing on the edge of great_

She glanced in his direction and he gestured his head for her to join him, a reminder. But she spun her head back to the crowd, a clear dismissal. Before he could try to figure out why she’d done it, he realized that her eyes were open and gazing into the main light.

_(On the edge of great) Great  
(On the edge of great) Great  
(On the edge of great)_

For the first half of the chorus, she seemed fine, continuing to sing. But her dancing was getting less vibrant and her voice weaker—maybe not in a way that was perceptible to the audience, but definitely in a way that was perceptible to him who had heard her perform this song dozens of times by now.

_'Cause we're standing on the edge of great_

She stopped, staring at the audience with her chest rising and falling. She was supposed to sing the next verse as well, but she looked like she was about to run off the makeshift stage. He stepped out toward her, nudging her gently on the arm, and began singing into her mic.

_We all make mistakes  
But they're just stepping stones_

She finally made eye contact with him, her eyes wide. He put a smile into his voice, trying to communicate a hug without taking his hands off his guitar.

_To take us where we wanna go  
It’s never straight, no_

He tilted his head, inviting her to join in. She nervously paired her voice with his, the suitability of the lyrics not lost on either of them.

_Sometimes we gotta lean  
Lean on someone else  
To get a little help  
Until we find our way_

Her smile seemed to be returning and she got back into dancing, making her way around the piano toward the crowd. He suspected that their heads were blocking the worst of the light. 

_I believe  
I believe that we're just one dream  
Away from who we're meant to be  
That we're standing on the edge of  
Something big, something crazy  
Our best days are yet unknown  
That this moment is ours to own_

She reached out to Flynn in the crowd, who grabbed her hand briefly and gave her an encouraging “yesss!”

_'Cause we're standing on the edge of great  
(On the edge of great) Great  
(On the edge of great) Great  
(On the edge of great)  
'Cause we're standing on the edge of..._

Julie sat on the piano, swaying back and forth. It had been a great bit of choreography--it gave her something to do that was visually interesting to the audience, but she was swaying so much that it wasn’t really obvious that she wasn’t looking at them. 

_Shout, shout  
C'mon and let it out, out  
Don't gotta hide it  
Let your colors blind their eyes  
Be who you are no compromise  
Just shout, shout  
C'mon and let it out, out  
What doesn't kill you makes you feel alive  
Ooh-oh_

Looking out at the light again, she hesitated for a split second. He quickly came out from behind his mic to join his guitar solo to her vocal solo.

_I believe  
I believe that we're just one dream_

She met his gaze and smiled, this heartbreakingly beautiful smile that he hadn’t ever seen her give on stage before. He grinned back and she dipped her head towards his for a moment.

_Away from who we're meant to be  
That we're standing on the edge of_

Her voice, and this whole performance, had a quality of beauty and togetherness that they hadn’t quite nailed before, but in that moment, he realized that the truly incandescent happiness he was currently feeling had nothing to do with the music they were making and everything to do with the joy on her face.

_great_

He headed back to his microphone for the final chorus, and she popped down off the piano to sit on the bench.

_Something big, something crazy  
Our best days are yet unknown  
That this moment is ours to own  
'Cause we're standing on the edge of great_

_(On the edge of great) On the edge of great  
(Great, on the edge of great) On the edge  
(Great, on the edge of great)  
'Cause we're standing on the edge of..._

The original plan was for them to finish the song together by looking at each other from afar—her at her piano, him at his mic. But she patted the seat next to her and he was only too happy to slip in. The small size of the bench forced them to sit right next to each other, their faces close, singing in quieter voices than they had for the rest of the song, as if having a private conversation.

_Running from the past_  
_Tripping on the now_  
_What is lost can be found, it's obvious_

The crowd cheered loudly, but she didn’t pull away immediately. Instead, she clicked off her mic without breaking eye contact and put her hand over his. “Thank you.”

“Are you good?”

“Yeah. I actually am. But see,” she squeezed his hand. “Not so untouchable.”

“Definitely a wrecking ball though.”

“So are you.”

Before he got tempted to do something silly, like kiss her for the first time in front of a crowd, they were suddenly engulfed in hugs from Alex, Reggie, and Flynn. Behind Julie’s back, Flynn gave him a reluctant thumbs up.

They finally felt ready for the final showcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • Jukebox the Ghost’s “Hold It In”; “Fred Astaire” (I tried so hard to fit JtG in this fic because Jukebox fics should have Jukebox the Ghost in them; sorry, I don’t make the rules.)  
> • “Edge of Great”


	7. Stand Tall

The night before the showcase, Luke was sitting alone on the piano bench in the practice room with the light off, trying not to look at his phone, when he heard the ding of the elevator arriving in the atrium. Through the window, he watched Julie approach and open the door without needing to check whether he was inside.

“Can I turn the light on?” she asked the dark room.

“Yeah.”

The overhead lights buzzed on and Luke squinted his eyes against the brightness. Julie walked towards him, but stopped short of the piano, putting her hands in her pockets. “Reggie texted me.”

“I’m okay.”

“I know I always sit alone in the dark when I’m at my happiest.”

He shot her a pout. “You’re supposed to politely pretend to believe my lies.”

“When has that ever been part of our relationship?” She slid onto the bench next to him, one foot up so she could face him. It almost brought a grin out of him—she’d adopted that from him. “Have your parents ever come to the showcase before?”

“No, working.”

“So this is… pretty big, right?”

“Could be big, could be nothing, could be really bad. Who knows? Just an extra thing to think about tomorrow that I didn’t really need.” Hope and resentment were battling in his stomach—he badly wanted this to be a turning point for his relationship with his parents, but he’d been burned so many times in the past. The idea of trying to figure out his emotional state beforehand felt exhausting and ultimately pointless.

He scanned her face for signs of her own emotional state. “How are you feeling about tomorrow?”

She shrugged right back, smiling tightly with her mouth closed. “Who knows?”

He huffed in sympathy, then reached out an arm to pull her into his chest in a hug. 

They stayed like that for a while.

* * *

“Why are we going last? Who decided that?” Alex paced back and forth in the green room, probably the most panicked Luke had ever seen him.

Reggie pointlessly tuned his bass for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. “I think it’s good. We’re technically the headliners.”

Alex grabbed his bandmate by the arms and gently shook him. “This. Is. Torture. I am being tortured.”

As Dirty Candy filed out of the green room, Luke checked the set list again. “Only one more performance to go before we’re on anyways.”

Alex held up his phone. “Willie says Bobby’s here. I am not okay with that.”

From his right, Luke heard a deep shaky breath. At first, he thought Julie was reacting on his behalf, but then he realized that she was breathing deeply out of her mouth, watching the door nervously. While Alex seemed to be trying to outrun his anxiety, Julie was imploding with hers.

He slipped her fingers in his. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer, which was when he started to get worried. He got to his feet, bringing their eyes level. “Julie.”

Puffing out another shaky breath, she shook her head. “I don’t—I don’t know if I can do this.”

“You can. We’ve practiced this. Just think of it like another rehearsal.”

“It’s not just another rehearsal. There are so many people and lights and pressure and I don’t want to ruin this for you.”

“You won’t.” By now, Alex and Reggie had realized what was happening and he could feel them hovering behind him, not wanting to crowd her but wanting to help.

“I can’t even sing with my eyes open. Maybe I can’t even sing with my eyes closed, maybe I’m just br--broken. And my mom’s not out there. Luke, I can’t go out there if my mom’s not out there.” Her face twisted up, tears shining in her eyes. His heart broke, and he cupped her face in his hand, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. Her words stopped coming out as her breath picked up, bordering on hyperventilating.

And that’s when he made the decision, without even needing to debate it.

“Then you don’t have to. We won’t play.” He glanced back at the guys to confirm that they were okay with it. Alex nodded faintly, more focused on Julie.

It shocked her enough that her breathing slowed temporarily. “What?”

“It’s that simple.”

She stared at him, trying to piece it together. “Luke, there’s a whole crowd out there.”

“I know.”

“Managers.”

“I know.”

“Bobby.”

“I know.”

“ _Your parents_.”

“Julie, I know you can rock this. But if going out there is going to hurt you, then we don’t go out there. That’s not even a question.” Her head collapsed forward, her forehead resting against his.

“I can rock this?” she asked, her voice small.

“Eyes open, eyes shut, back to the crowd, dancing in the aisles—no matter what, you can rock this. But just because you can doesn’t mean you have to.”

She opened her eyes, peering into his with a dizzying proximity. But she didn’t seem to actually be looking at him; instead, she was debating within herself at a mile a minute. What she was thinking about and what conclusions she was drawing, he didn’t know, but she finally exhaled and nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s do it,” she clarified.

“Are you sure?” Alex asked.

She nodded. There was something… different about her. More settled. “Yeah.”

Luke beamed at her, but before he could gather them into a band circle, the door opened and Mrs. Harrison popped her head in. “Final ensemble’s up!”

The entire walk to the stage, Luke kept a pace behind Julie, watching to see if she would change her mind or even if her posture would change. But she stayed determined, chin jutting forward slightly. As they filed onto stage and took their places, and Reggie and Luke quickly double checked their tuning, she went up to her mic and looked out at the audience.

“Hi, we’re Julie and the Phantoms. This song, Luke and I wrote together, based on something I worked on with my mom, and I would like to dedicate it to my mother, Rose Molina.”

She strode over to the piano. But rather than sit down as she normally did, because it gave her an excuse to hide, she stayed standing and looked out at the crowd again. The spotlight swept over her, and for a moment she paused. Then she exhaled a deep breath, like she was exorcising a demon, and began to play.

_Don't blink  
No, I don't want to miss it  
One thing, and it's back to the beginning  
Cause everything is rushing in fast  
Keep going on never look back_

Luke, Alex, and Reggie exchanged identical grins.

_And it's one, two, three, four times  
That I'll try for one more night  
Light a fire in my eyes  
I'm going out of my mind  
Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing_

Cheers, well-fucking-earned cheers, started as she effortless nailed her high notes.

_I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall  
Whatever happens  
Even when everything's down  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall  
I gotta keep on dreaming  
Cause I gotta catch that feeling  
Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing  
I'ma stand tall_

Alex came in with the drums, and she flashed him a smile as she always had, but her eyes didn’t leave the crowd, as if she thought her ability to look beyond the stage would disappear if she stopped doing it for even a moment.

_I'ma stand tall_

Reggie started playing and she nodded to acknowledge him but still kept her attention on the audience.

_Right now  
I'm loving every minute  
Hands down  
Can't let myself forget it, no  
Cause everything is rushing in fast  
Keep holding on nevеr look back  
And it's one, two, three, four times  
That I'll try for one morе night  
Light a fire in my eyes_

Luke started singing, and she took her mic out of the stand and started dancing over to him. But unlike in the past, when dancing was a way for her to not look out at the audience, she kept her face turned out to them.

_I’m going out of my mind  
Whatever happens  
Even if I’m the last standing  
I’ma stand tall  
I’ma stand tall_

Finally, she pulled her eyes from the crowd and locked them onto his, singing without breaking eye contact. Where in the past, eye contact on stage had felt like a life preserver for her, it now felt like she wanted to sing to him and that… well, that gave him feelings that he really couldn’t process right now.

_Whatever happens  
Even when everything's down  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall  
I gotta keep on dreaming  
Cause I gotta catch that feeling  
Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall_

She and Reggie strode to the front of the stage. Performing back-to-back. Singing out to the crowd. Performing with an abandon he hadn’t seen her exude on stage before.

_Like I'm glowing in the dark  
I keep on going when it's all falling apart_

Luke added his voice to theirs.

_Yeah I know it with all my heart  
Ooh, ooh  
Never look back_

Alex stood up at his drums, singing to the crowd, drawing whoops from the members of their class who, despite his presence in the vocal performance class, knew him primarily as a drummer.

_Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall_

Then Reggie came in for his solo. It was a good reminder that, while it was easy for Luke to want to give the bulk of their vocal solos to Julie, his bassist had a damn fine voice as well. Definitely needed to utilize that more.

_Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall_

There was Luke’s favorite part, where Julie got her solo line.

_Stand tall_

Or was the moment when all their voices blended together his favorite?

_Stand tall  
Whatever happens  
Even if I'm the last standing  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall  
Whatever happens_

Julie approached Luke with her mic, a fire and joy in her eyes. He quickly followed her away from his own mic, rushing to keep up with her.

_Even when everything's down  
I'ma stand tall  
I'ma stand tall  
I gotta keep on dreaming  
Cause I gotta catch that feeling  
Whatever happens_

As they reached the front of the stage, he became aware that 1) Julie was practically cuddled into him (which wasn’t important at the moment, but also really was) and 2) that the guys had come out to join him.

_Even if I'm the last standing_  
_I'ma stand tall_  
_I'ma stand tall_

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder, the band beamed at one another and took a deep bow. Luke suddenly became aware of the thunderous applause around them. 

They’d slayed. Good to know. But at the moment, it hardly seemed like the priority.

As they hurried off stage to the final applause, Luke pulled Julie to the side. She was absolutely glowing.

“How did you do that?”

“I guess I’ve spent all this time thinking that I had to sing and forcing myself to sing because it’s what everyone wanted and it’s what my mom would have wanted, and I never really thought about if I wanted to. As soon you said I didn’t have to, it just…” she tapped her chest. “finally made sense in here.” Her face was flushed with a bright energy he’d never seen from her before, a new confidence. “I want to sing. I’m going back to therapy, and I’m throwing myself into practice, and I’m going to find a way to deal with my performance anxiety because… I’m a damn musician.”

“You _are_ a damn musician. You’re incredible.”

She shrugged modestly. “I was born with the voice. Not really an achievement.”

“No, I mean, _you’re_ incredible.” He cupped her face with his hand again, rubbing his thumb over her cheek, marveling at how different the circumstances were than they had been four minutes ago.

She turned her head into his palm and kissed it, then popped up on her toes and pressed her forehead against his. Her lips were inches from his, but first he had to know.

“How do you feel about long-distance relationships?”

Incredulous, she laughed. “Luke, we live in the same city. It’s not going to be long distance.”

“During peak traffic hours, aka basically all daylight hours in LA, it’s, like, an hour minimum between us.”

“We’re in a band. We’re all gonna be in the studio together basically every day anyways. And on non-band days… You’re what, ten minutes from the beach?” He nodded. “I like the beach. And I like you. Worth the trek.”

Pulling her in close to him, he kissed her eagerly, almost dizzy from the bliss of their performance, her success, and her lips on his. It wasn’t a great kiss—they were both smiling far too much—but he was pretty sure they were going to have plenty of chances to perfect it.

Before he could kiss her again, Reggie elbowed him in the side. “A manager’s heading our way! Act professional!”

Alex inserted himself between Luke and Julie. “Wait, what do professional people do with their hands?”

Julie wrapped her arms around Reggie and Alex, the whole band linking together in a side hug. As they turned to greet the approaching woman in a suit, Luke felt his heart clench, almost pained by how happy he was. He had absolutely no idea what was coming next, but with this group of people by his side, he knew it could only be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s all, folks! At some point, I'll be writing a follow up oneshot in this verse when the story decides to present itself.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as [pearlcaddy](https://pearlcaddy.tumblr.com)!
> 
> Songs/musical references in this chapter:  
> • “Stand Tall”


End file.
